Hi team. So a few little thoughts on post-marathon recovery.
I’ve covered it briefly before, but I’m going to say it again.
Our muscles are the things that complain the loudest after any form of exercise or big challenge. They have a great nerve supply, so they shout, but they also have a great blood supply, so they heal up pretty quickly. Other tissue types take longer.
So there’s a reason why there’s a good three or four weeks recovery post, for example, a marathon. You might feel pretty good after the end of week one, but the other tissue types that are healing more slowly but don’t complain as much because they’ve got less of a nerve supply and blood supply than muscles, will still be doing that recovery work.
And also just on your all sorts of systems, your nervous system, your immune system, all need a bit of time and space to bounce back, not just from the race, but all the training that you did in the build-up.
Sleep, rest and recovery support
What can help with that? Sort of similar to what I was saying pre-race really, early nights, plenty of sleep. That’s when your body does its best recovery physically and active, mentally calm rest time, also really good for recovery.
Nutrition for post-race repair
Thinking about our food. So again, that rich vitamin and mineral intake from lots of different types of foods, lots of different colors of food, and also a little bit more of a focus on protein at this point because that’s the other key ingredient for our recovery.
Gentle movement in the first week
Doing a little bit of light exercise this week, in the first week post a marathon or a bigger race, just to keep ourselves moving. Doesn’t have to be any running at all.
It might be a bit of walking. Swimming is fantastic, cycling, but you don’t have to do anything if your body doesn’t feel like it, if things are feeling really, really sore.
A little bit of gentle movement can help.
Rebuilding gradually
And then just rebuild gradually. So, if you’re working with a coach, they’ll do that thinking for you, but not trying to go back into anything too crazy really.
Really do allow your body the time and the space to do a full recovery after an event, because that then means that you’re able to crack on with your training. It means that any kind of niggles or bits and pieces, your body or things that have maybe gotten slightly overloaded, your body’s had the time and the space to go and fix.
Hope that’s useful. Happy running.
